Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, standing in front of the Parthenon, declared that the Trump administration sought to partner with Europe in defending the “distinct character” of Western civilization. It was meant, perhaps, as an exhortation.

But to Europe, it sounded like a threat. The U.S., said Rubio, had chosen “the ...Read more

An embattled President Donald Trump is undertaking a risky gambit raiding the home of controversial “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar just seven weeks before the election.

If the court ordered warrant by Homeland Security turns up nothing and Omar is cleared, it could seriously backfire on Trump and the GOP, which has been obsessed by the far ...Read more

The omens that President Donald Trump is facing an epic example of what another Republican president once called “a thumpin’” are accumulating. His deeply unpopular Middle East war is metastasizing, contributing to persistently high prices and a historically low public opinion of his presidency.

Republican schemes to rig the vote by ...Read more

Republicans are potentially looking at historic losses in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in November, much of that due, no doubt, to the war in Iran that President Donald Trump said he wouldn't start and the high prices he promised to end.

But how much is also due to Congress' handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and the ...Read more

Nearly two years into his role as secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth has yet to leave his old job as a Fox News host behind. His recent “State of the Force” address at Quantico demonstrated once again that he’s more interested in fighting a culture war and delivering glib soundbites than he is in running the Pentagon.

The speech was much ...Read more

President Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States will not attack Iran before the midterm elections raises a question no commander in chief should leave unanswered: Is America’s policy being set by the national interest or by Election Day?

This does not sound like a strategic calculation. A strategy would explain what the U.S. ...Read more

Trying to lower expectations for Republicans on Nov. 3, Vice President JD Vance has recently stressed that it has become almost impossible for the president’s party to maintain unified control of the House and Senate through a midterm election. He’s right about that trend. But he’s wrong to ignore the role that President Donald Trump — ...Read more

Every autumn, families flock to pumpkin patches and fall fairs in search of hayrides, corn mazes and seasonal fun. But tucked among the gourds and festive displays, many attractions also feature petting zoos and other hands-on animal encounters that pose serious risks to both visitors and animals. As pumpkin patch season gets underway, parents ...Read more

During back-to-school season, college students and their parents can easily overlook what should be a priority: vaccinations. For students who have missed recommended vaccines, college can be the moment when that decision suddenly has consequences.

Many colleges and universities require documentation of vaccinations such as MMR (measles, mumps ...Read more

Debate continues across the country on our nation’s energy future. What is our best energy policy going forward?

Several factors contribute to a higher standard of living, but one of the most important is access to reliable and inexpensive energy. Affordable energy is essential for almost every aspect of our modern lives. Without it, we ...Read more

The last thing President Donald Trump needs right now is another war brewing in the Middle East. But this is what Trump is getting at a time when he’s in a monthslong standoff with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz and as midterm elections, traditionally seen as a referendum on the first two years of a president’s term, are weeks away.

Over ...Read more

Every election now feels existential.

That's the word NYU law professor Richard Pildes used in a recent New York Times interview with Sarah Isgur: Many Americans on both sides of the political spectrum are convinced the country will never be the same if the other side wins. He points to a striking pattern. Since 2000, control of the House, the ...Read more

California has always hidden the true price of progress somewhere beyond the horizon.

The water arrives from a distant river. The electricity crosses a mountain range. By the time the benefits reach us, the damage has been assigned elsewhere.

Now the future is arriving in windowless buildings.

Data centers are rising from industrial corridors...Read more

Former Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan murdered 13 people and wounded 32 others at Ft. Hood, Texas, in 2009. His guilt is not in doubt. Nothing about his crime invites sympathy. But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants Americans to watch him die.

After Hegseth announced plans to livestream Hasan’s Dec. 3 execution by firing squad, retired ...Read more

If you believe the artificial intelligence industry, they're thirsting for government regulation; at least, some of their leaders are.

OpenAI issued a whole "blueprint for democratic governance" of AI in June. Around the same time, Dario Amodei, the chief executive of the AI firm Anthropic, called for "more serious and binding regulation of AI"...Read more

It’s a time-honored tradition for one generation to shake its head at the next, wondering if progress and technology have caused more harm than good. So it is now, with some prominent academics saying kids today need to be off their screens or unsupervised more often, as they were in simpler times.

As tempting as it is to look backwards, and ...Read more

This is what Maya Angelou had in mind when she wrote about “the dream and the hope of the slave.”

Meet Alexis Sims, Nia-Sarai Perry, Cori’Anna White, Aiyana Ringo, Alyssa Richardson, Sophia Davis and Mariama Diallo — a group of young Black women who personify academic excellence.

These are seven Spelman College graduates — better ...Read more

Last month, the White House announced that the United States and China had “operationalized” their new Board of Trade. The working procedures, however, say remarkably little about how the board is actually supposed to operate.

Years of tariff disputes between Washington and Beijing have produced many announcements. The Board of Trade is the...Read more

At the rape crisis center where I was trained in Chicago, we didn’t refer to the criminal justice system. We called it the criminal legal system: because justice, while aspirational, is rarely achieved. As an emergency room advocate, I was taught never to pressure survivors to report to the police, but simply to outline their options and ...Read more

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has a fantastic sense of humor. At a time when Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh has turned central bank “forward guidance” into a banned phrase, the academy awarded the Nobel Prize in economics to Michael Woodford, one of the intellectual fathers of the practice, and Robert Hall, whose research on ...Read more